Bad TV
by CliveLive49
Summary: 'This isn't bad TV, Gladys,' he says. He reaches for the whiskey bottle and wraps a hand around it, but doesn't pull it towards him. Just holds it, as though anchoring himself. 'It's bloody good TV.' He lets go of the bottle. 'This is *my* show,' he slaps his hand down on the table for emphasis, 'And *I'm* running it.' Very, very angsty.


'Lock the doors on your way out, gentlemen,' says Nelson, throwing back the bolt and nodding goodnight to his two remaining patrons. It's unlike Nelson to allow anyone free reign of the pub in his absence, though it's reached three o clock in the morning, and he can't stay awake any longer to babysit the Guv and his new Golden Boy. The atmosphere has grown surreal and hazy in the long hours after midnight, and it doesn't seem too strange to leave Sam and Gene to their own private lock-in. Nelson's eyes are tired and scratchy from cigarette smoke. He can't be bothered to haul them out of their chairs and throw them into the street. He just wants to go home and put on some Reggae. Or Barry Manilow.

'I'll be checking the bottles, tomorrow, Mon Bravs,' he adds. 'Anything you drink goes on your tab tomorrow.' He steps out into the warm, damp night, and the door clatters closed behind him.

But Sam and the Guv have already drunk more than they should have. And they have another whole bought-and-paid-for bottle of whiskey to work through on the table between them.

Gene lurches out of this chair, staggers to the door and throws the bolt back across. When he falls heavily back into his seat, Sam has begun to press the flats of his hands to the table top and pull them up slowly from the sticky surface, with a sound like tearing sellotape off the roll.

'What was I talking about?' says Gene.

Most of the pub lights have been turned off. They are sitting in their own little spot-lit circle, right in the centre of the pub. The table is casting angular shadows across the floor. In the light from the single lamp above them, spirals of fag smoke are curling around each other like dry ice. They're centre-stage in Sam's dream.

'Mates,' says Sam. 'Think it was mates.'

'That's it,' says Gene. 'Mates. Damn straight. What was it about them?'

Sam squints and wipes his hands on his trousers.

'You know who they are,' he says.

'Precisely,' says Gene. 'That was excactly it. Like you,' he points a surprisingly steady finger in Sam's direction. 'For instance. Take the example of you and me. We are most certainly not mates.'

Sam looks astonished and affronted.

'Why?' he asks, and even to himself his tone sounds petulant.

'Not sure,' says Gene, resolutely. 'But we're not. Everyone's somethin'. They all 'ave a role. Ray's a mate. Chris is a div. Phyllis is a cow. Annie's a bit-of-alright.'

Sam snorts.

'Must you reduce everyone to stock characters in a bit of bad TV?'

Gene looks at Sam, suddenly straight and serious.

'This isn't bad TV, Gladys,' he says. He reaches for the whiskey bottle and wraps a hand around it, but doesn't pull it towards him. Just holds it, as though anchoring himself. 'It's bloody good TV.' He lets go of the bottle. 'This is *my* show,' he slaps his hand down on the table for emphasis, 'And *I'm* running it. Can't quite figure out what part you're playing, though. You...'

'Me..?' asks Sam.

'You are something different. Have to have a think about it.'

'Hm,' says Sam. A short, defiant sound. 'Nice to know I'm such an enigma to you.'

'Nope. Never thought you were one of them things washed out people's back passage,' said Gene. He paused in thought. 'Though you are full of shit sometimes.'

'An *enigma*' repeated Sam, taking another slug of whiskey.

'Bollocks to it anyway,' says Gene. 'Who's a mate to you, then? If you even have any, you lonely sod.'

Sam is stumped. He'd thought perhaps that Gene was a mate, but now that Gene had adamantly denied it, he couldn't say 'You, Gene. You're a mate to me'. Ray certainly didn't qualify. Perhaps Chris...

'My Dad,' says Sam, pleased with himself. 'My Dad was a good mate to me. Before he left.'

Gene looks into his cigarette packet to find it empty. He picks it up and crushes it in his fist with a sudden, violent clench.

'Was he now?' says Gene. 'Good man, was he? Taught you stuff? Took you to the footie? Painted Hornby trains with you?'

Sam looks at the table top.

'No,' he says. 'He never did any of that.'

They sit in silence for a moment.

'You were lyin' then,' says Gene, flicking his thumb over the flint of his lighter repeatedly, but not letting it catch.

'Maybe you're my Dad!' says Sam, in a moment of drunken enlightenment.

'I beg your pin-headed Freudian pardon, Dorothy?' says Gene.

'Maybe that's my part to play. Maybe I'm the son you never had.'

Gene looks for a moment like he's going to throw up. Sam has never seen him look like that before.

'You,' says Gene, and then pauses for a long, meaningful moment, 'Are a twat.'

Sam doesn't acknowledge the insult. He seems to have lost the train of the conversation.

'Need a piss,' he says, hauls himself to his feet and weaves his way through the tables to the gents'.

Gene sits and waits for him for ten minutes. He drinks another glass of whiskey. He plays with his lighter a bit more. Then he grows impatient. He's not concerned that Sam had fallen and hit his head - he's simply bored without company. He stuffs his lighter into the pocket of his camel coat and heads for the loos.

When he throws open the door of the toilet, the bang startles Sam. He is standing in front of the urinal with his trousers and pants around his thighs, and he whips himself around towards the sound, still holding his cock in his hands, the unbroken stream of urine arcing through the air and slashing a wet line across Gene's waist.

Gene barely has time to register what's happened.

For Sam, it all happens with perfect clarity. He sees the line of piss move gracefully towards Gene in spectacular slow motion, sees the expression on Gene's face transform from placid determination to utter shock in wide-screen, high-definition, even though the technology hasn't been invented yet.

The moment freeze-frames, and then un-freezes.

'Fuck!' yells Gene. 'What the 'ell? You fucking fucker!' He scrambles out of his camel hair coat and holds it out in front of him to inspect the stain. 'Me coat,' he says, his voice low and grumbling. 'Me bloody coat.' He angles the stain towards the buzzing overhead lights to judge the extent of the damage.

'Oh, my God,' says Sam, shaking himself off into the urinal and tucking himself away quickly. 'I'm really sorry. Guv - seriously, I'm really, really sorry. Let me have a look.'

Sam goes to take the coat from Gene, but Gene snatches it out of this reach.

'Don't touch the bloody coat, you little pisser,' he says. There isn't much urine on the coat, as it happens. Most of it hit Gene just above his belt line, and he can feel the slowly cooling wet stripe of shirt sticking to his belly. 'What gets piss out?'

'I don't know...' says Sam, impotently. 'Vinegar?'

'Really?' asks Gene.

'I don't know,' says Sam.

The lights flicker. Nelson keeps the gents' in fairly good nick, though bits of it are inevitably falling apart. Several tiles are cracked on the almost clean off-white floor. There's only a little graffiti on the sick-green cubicle doors, the worst of which reads

'Ray is a pufter,' below a small picture of a cock and balls, done in black magic marker. Sam suspects Gene's responsible.

The lights have a cold blue tint to them, and Sam has often wondered if this is his hospital room leaking through.

Gene pulls his coat back on, untucks his shirt from his trousers and begins to undo his shirt buttons from the bottom upwards.

'It's bloody clear your Dad *didn't* teach you anything,' he says. 'Didn't even potty train yer by the looks of it.'

Sam squares his shoulders and straightens the lapels of his leather jacket.

'As a matter of fact,' he says defensively, 'He did. I can remember it.'

Gene gives Sam an incredulous look.

'You can't remember that far back. It'll be a bastarding... whatdyacallit? Constructed memory?'

'Very good, Guv,' says Sam, patronisingly. 'Constructed memory. Though it's definitely a real memory.'

Gene has undone his shirt all the way now, and it is hanging loose, framing his hairless chest and modest beer belly. Sam yanks a paper towel from the holder above the sink, runs it under the warm tap and holds it out to Gene as a peace offering.

Gene takes it. He begins to wipe the piss off his stomach with slow, deliberate strokes.

'Ta,' he says, quietly. Almost nonchalantly.

The sight of this makes Sam continue speaking, though he's unsure what he's saying, or precisely why he's saying it.

'I remember I felt amazing. On top of the fucking world, when I realised I could stand up to... you know... 'go'. It's powerful, isn't it? I mean... I enjoy it. Standing up.'

Sam notices that Gene has balled up the wet paper towel in his fist, like the cigarette packet earlier. He is squeezing it so tight that drops of water are leaking through Gene's fingers and pooling on the floor beside him.

At that point, Gene seems to make a decision. It probably has a lot to do with the lateness of the hour, and the surreal blue-ness of the flickering light, which makes the gents' seem otherworldly, their own pocket of a different dimension. As though nothing they do here will impact tomorrow.

'Have ye got any left in you?' says Gene.

It takes Sam a moment to work out what Gene means. Though he still asks,

'What?'

Gene tosses the paper towel into the bin below the sinks. It's a bullseye.

'I *mean*, Gladys, have you got any left *in* you? Have you gone deaf as well as completely dumb?'

Sam does have some left. He must have drunk twelve pints and a quart of whiskey tonight, and he hadn't quite finished when Gene interrupted him. He still needs to go.

Sam stiffens when he feels Gene's warm presence behind him, walking him to stand in front of the urinal again with gentle but threatening nudges of Gene's front against his back.

Gene presses his chest and belly right up against the back of Sam's leather jacket. His tomach is still damp, and Gene feels his skin sticking to the leather.

'Seems to me, my lad, that if you're pissing quite literally all over your superior officer, you've forgotten this basic skill.' He is talking directly into Sam's ear, his neck craned around, his stubble biting into the side of Sam's face. His camel coat is hanging down around Sam and the sides of the urinal. With this protective cocoon around them, Sam supposes he should feel safe, though in fact he feels the opposite. Everything outside is safe. He is enclosed in a tiny bubble of danger. He has no idea what the Guv plans to do next.

'Do you need reminding?' says Gene, bringing his hands around suddenly to the front of Sam's trousers and going to undo his fly. 'Do you need reminding how to piss standing up?'

'What?' says Sam, startled, slapping Gene's hands away. Somehow, despite their positions, their body contact, the strange heaviness in the air between them, Sam hadn't expected Gene to do *that.* Gene rests his hands against the sides of the urinal and waits.

There is a moment of stillness, and then Gene quickly brings his hands back to Sam's fly, this time yanking the zip down before Sam slaps his hands away again, panting with defiance. Gene's hands are back on the sides of the urinal.

Another few seconds, and then Gene's hands are back, the right one worming its way into Sam's open fly and the other intercepting Sam's left wrist as it moves in for another slap. The fight goes out of Sam, and he moves his other hand to the wall to steady himself as Gene slowly grips his wrist and untucks him from his trousers.

'Way I see it, Samantha,' says Gene, 'There's only certain people I let piss on me.' He takes Sam in his fist and begins to move his hand slowly up and down his length. 'Had a girlfriend once liked to do it.' Gene's breaths are coming harder and faster. 'She was a kinky sod. You remind me of her.'

Suddenly Sam can feel Gene's hardness, even through the leather of his jacket, pressing insistently into the small of his back.

'Scrawny,' Gene continues to palm Sam, 'Whiny, altogether feminine in her daily habits.' He tucks his face into Sam's neck in a strangely affectionate gesture. Sam suspects it's intended to unnerve him. 'Kinky in the bedroom, though.'

Sam is uncomfortably aware that he is about to either urinate again or come. He can't decide which to do first, and knows that before long his body will decide for him.

'And now that you've pissed on me,' continues Gene, 'I reckon there's a level of unexpected intimacy been forced upon us. And I intend to respect that.' He works his hand over Sam faster. 'This is my show,' whispers Gene horsely into Sam's ear. 'My show.' Sam begins to grunt. 'Come on, my lad. Are you going to piss for me again?' he breathes heavily into Sam's ear, which is growing red with the heat of his breath, 'Or are you going to come?' Gene begins to rub himself up against Sam's back. 'I need you to decide. How will you ever learn, eh, lad, if I don't let you make your own decisions?'

In the end, there's no choice about it.

Sam whimpers, groans and comes, splattering the back of the urinal with thick streams of white. He feels Gene nod approvingly into his neck. Then Sam is tugged out of the way as Gene slams his hand down on the flush to wash away the piss and cum from the bowl, before shedding his camel hair coat and his open shirt and collapsing back into the bowl of the urinal, sitting there regally with his legs spread and his top half bare, grabbing Sam by the sides of his jacket and yanking him down to kneel in front of him.

Gene undoes his trousers and frees his own cock, grabbing the back of Sam's neck and pulling his face down into his crotch. Sam doesn't open his mouth - uncertain, frightened and uncomfortably aware of his own cock still hanging out, he turns his head and lets his cheek mash against Gene's length. Gene, clearly unsatisfied, takes Sam's face between his hands and twists his head until his closed mouth is pressed to Gene's cock. Then he works Sam's head up and down until finally Sam gives in and opens his mouth. Gene moves quickly, taking his own cock in his hand and sliding it into the warm wet cavity between Sam's parted lips. And Sam finally takes him in, sucking hard.

'Fuck,' says Gene. 'You're a filthy little fucker.' Gene makes a low, rumbling noise deep in his chest and shifts his feet against the floor. Now that Gene is inside, Sam relents in the knowledge that he's lost the battle, and begins to move his head, circling his tongue around the tip of Gene's cock. Sam can hear Gene grinding his teeth. None of Sam's lovers have ever done that before. He thinks it's the strangest bedroom habit he's ever encountered. 'You pissed on me,' Gene says. Sam nods, his mouth bobbing up and down, coating Gene in glistening saliva. 'Maybe I should get my own back.'

Sam's eyes snap open in sudden alarm and he tries to pull away, only for Gene's hold on his head to tighten.

'Maybe I should, eh? What do you think?'

But he doesn't. He only comes, pinching Sam's nose so that he's forced to swallow. Sam can hear nothing but the muted buzzing of the broken lights. His ears have popped. Gene is still holding onto his nose. They're both underwater in the blue light of the public bathroom, their movements slow and too much effort.

'Get my coat, Gladys,' says Gene, and Sam can only see his lips move.

The lights flicker. Sam closes his eyes and can still see them flicker through the dark behind his eyelids.

He is disconcerted. He'd thought his was all his show. Though increasingly he's having to concede that perhaps, just perhaps, it is Gene's.


End file.
